In Bangladesh, the Solidarity Center aims to advance worker rights in important industries, promote constructive and peaceful labor-management relations, and improve both the rule of law and the economic vitality of Bangladesh as a whole.
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Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with more than 150 million people crammed into an area the size of Wisconsin. Its 60-million-member workforce is primarily made up of farmers—tea and rice are two important crops. Nearly 2 million workers, mostly women, are employed in ready-made garment factories, where production grew at double-digit rates throughout the 1990s, and many more work in export processing zones. Hundreds of thousands are part of Bangladesh’s burgeoning seafood processing industry.
In 2004, a groundbreaking law allowed the establishment of worker associations in EPZ factories for the first time—a step toward genuine union representation. A new labor code, enacted in 2006, also seemed promising, even though it carried over many existing restrictions on union and worker rights. But in January 2007, the government imposed a state of emergency that banned union activities. Employers took advantage of the situation to orchestrate systematic harassment of union leaders and break existing unions. Registration of new unions was suspended for the entire year, and implementation of the new labor code was put in abeyance. Routine use of intimidation and violence by employer-hired thugs and local authorities, and impunity for egregious human rights acts, created a palpable climate of fear among union organizers and activists.
In September 2007, the AFL-CIO filed a petition with the U.S. Trade Representative seeking to remove Bangladesh from the list of eligible beneficiary developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences. The petition specifically noted worker rights violations in the shrimp-processing and ready-made garment industries, as well as in the EPZs. As a result, the USTR placed Bangladesh under continuing review to monitor its progress toward a set of worker rights benchmarks. The state of emergency was lifted in December 2008. In April 2009, the AFL-CIO reported that the government and employers of Bangladesh had taken some steps forward, but because of concerns about ongoing worker rights violations, it requested continuation of the review.
Today, worker association elections have been held in roughly 75 percent of all EPZ factories, and in the vast majority workers have voted—sometimes by overwhelming margins—in favor of forming associations. The next challenge for these new organizations is engaging in collective negotiations with employers.
Opening the Door to EPZ Unions in Bangladesh. The Solidarity Center helped pass and implement a new law that gives workers the right to organize trade unions in Export Processing Zones.
Victory for Interstoff Workers. In Bangladesh the Solidarity Center helped textile workers defend their right to organize and form a union.
Solidarity Center work with EPZs in Southeast Asia. In Asia's export processing zones, sometimes called "factory cities," thousands of workers, 95 percent of them young women, manufacture clothing, shoes, electronic equipment, and other products for shipment to other countries.
Solidarity Center Publications
- The True Cost of Shrimp (2008). In the $13 billion seafood processing industry, workers pay the price for affordability. This report, the second in our Degradation of Work series, uncovers pervasive worker and human rights violations such as low-wage sweatshop conditions, use of child and forced labor, and global supply chains that drive wages down and hide the exploitation of workers.
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